The second half of Claude Berri's elegant two-part Provençal epic shares with 'Jean de Florette' the same sun washed, arid landscapes, the same rich tapestry of events, and many of the same hardy peasant characters. Here again is the unscrupulous landowner Le Papet and his weak-willed simpleton nephew Ugolin, along with the beautiful but untamed Manon, now grown to womanhood and living wild in the hills, where she decides to fight water with water (or a lack of it) by blocking the source of the vital spring supplying the nearby village.
The sequel ties up all the narrative threads left dangling at the end of the earlier film (and as a result is more plot-heavy than its predecessor), but Manon's revenge against the men who (indirectly) murdered her father isn't as sweet as it should have been. After driving the love struck Ugolin to suicide (by simply ignoring his pathetic advances), she virtually disappears from the story, leaving Le Papet to a fate of his own design, outlined in some lumpy exposition before the heartbreaking conclusion.
The rich local flavor and surprising unpretentiousness make it a worthwhile and often moving drama, but despite the title the film belongs to Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil. Emmanuelle Béart, as Manon, doesn't have more than a dozen lines of dialogue, and her fashion model looks are a distraction.
The sequel ties up all the narrative threads left dangling at the end of the earlier film (and as a result is more plot-heavy than its predecessor), but Manon's revenge against the men who (indirectly) murdered her father isn't as sweet as it should have been. After driving the love struck Ugolin to suicide (by simply ignoring his pathetic advances), she virtually disappears from the story, leaving Le Papet to a fate of his own design, outlined in some lumpy exposition before the heartbreaking conclusion.
The rich local flavor and surprising unpretentiousness make it a worthwhile and often moving drama, but despite the title the film belongs to Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil. Emmanuelle Béart, as Manon, doesn't have more than a dozen lines of dialogue, and her fashion model looks are a distraction.